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Comment by stoddur | Hacker News Reader

If that’s the case, they’ll make a single 300 km trip or day. I doubt that the business case for that is strong. With autonomous Semis on the horizon, the potential reduction in costs with the scaling of hauling in km / day will drive costs down. 300 km a day won’t be competitive in that space.

For a buyer of semis, the cost of running one is arguably the most important factor. Producers need to focus on $ / km and there range is quite important (as well as charging infrastructure)

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> If that’s the case, they’ll make a single 300 km trip or day. I doubt that the business case for that is strong.

You might have heard of UPS? FedEx? Amazon? Maybe you've had a contractor work on your home or business?

All of these businesses operate on less than 180 miles round trips per day typically inside the US. In Europe distances tend to be even shorter.

Semis are by nature long haul. It's rare to see semis pulling 40 foot trailers through urban areas even in the US. Semis are usually limited to long haul or short haul freight from industrial or agricultural areas. The Volvo trucks are designed to operate locally and it's a huge market.

> For a buyer of semis, the cost of running one is arguably the most important factor.

There is definitely a market for semis—particularly in the US—but it's a vastly different market than what this targets.

> All of these businesses operate on less than 180 miles round trips per day typically inside the US. In Europe distances tend to be even shorter.

Yes but you are referring to the small urban trucks used in last mile deliveries. The article mentions heavy duty trucks. Even in the last mile delivery case, a limited 300km range is a problem because that means the same truck cannot be shared by workers in following shifts. Or maybe operate autonomously 24/7.

> Yes but you are referring to the small urban trucks used in last mile deliveries. The article mentions heavy duty trucks.

We don't have to guess. If you go to Volvo's site, you can see exactly what sort of trucks they are talking about. We're talking about:

=> "A two-axle truck with a gross vehicle weight up to 16 tonnes and an excellent working environment for the driver. Volvo Trucks can deliver complete vehicles for urban transport like deliveries."

AND

=> "A three-axle truck with a gross vehicle weight up to 27 tonnes and a comfortable working environment for the driver. Volvo Trucks can deliver complete vehicles for demanding types of urban transport like waste collection, light construction transports and deliveries."

https://www.volvotrucks.com/en-en/trucks/alternative-fuels/e...

> Even in the last mile delivery case, a limited 300km range is a problem because that means the same truck cannot be shared by workers in following shifts.

Pretty much all delivery companies have sub 12 hour routes which run during business hours and into the evening. There is very little demand for package delivery at 2am. Likewise, construction is a 9-5 sort of job. Garbage collection (which is specifically mentioned) is almost always a once/ per day route.

I'm sure there is demand for autonomous 24/7 vehicles out there, but there are also plenty of commercial vehicles which are parked over night as well.

FWIW:

> => "A two-axle truck with a gross vehicle weight up to 16 tonnes and an excellent working environment for the driver. Volvo Trucks can deliver complete vehicles for urban transport like deliveries."

This is still significantly heavier than what most courier companies like FedEx and DHL use; within Europe most use Ford Transits and similar, which have a maximum gross weight of 3.5t (this is partly due to licensing; these vehicles can be driven on a normal "car" driving license).

I'm not entirely sure what you are saying here, that Volvo doesn't know what they are talking about? You'd think after decades in this industry Volvo knows who their target market is.

I don't live in Europe, but I'm inclined to take Volvo at face value on this.

You two appear to be talking past each other. When Volvo says deliveries they likely don't mean residential deliveries in the typical P700/P800/P1000/P1200 package cars that people associate with UPS, and the analogous models at FedEx. The two-axle Volvo truck is comparable to a Freightliner M2 106, a straight-truck, not a package car. And the Volvo truck has a maximum GVWR of 16 tonnes, the final configuration would be lower, and you could operate it without a CDL. The poster is correct about licensing requirements. I do not have a CDL, but I can drive the straight trucks and package cars because they are under the 26,000lbs GVWR limit in my state.

Exactly. This is long haul trucking we are talking about, not the typical FedEx van.

You know I saw his post and I thought... hmm maybe he's right. Then you go and confirm that we aren't talking past each other. You just don't seem to get that there is indeed demand for this kind of truck for local use.

Again, look at Volvo's site. They understand this market, they've been in it for 50+ years.

No. There's a large addressable market inbetween FedEx vans and long haul trucking. That's what these trucks are addressing.

Long haul trucking is still out of reach of batteries, it seems.

No, we're not talking about long haul trucking, which is done with tractors. To use an American example, the two-axle truck could be used for intra-city moving, like U-Haul. Speaking with my commercial customers, they also do their own intra-city deliveries of plumbing supplies and HVAC/appliances. Amazon runs two workers in a box truck for irregular packages. Furniture companies use box trucks for intra-city deliveries. Document shredding companies could use these trucks. Landscaping companies use trucks like the Isuzu NQR. Look around you at next time you're in a city and make a note of what trucks you see. That's what Volvo is targeting here

> The two-axle Volvo truck is comparable to a Freightliner M2 106, a straight-truck, not a package car. And the Volvo truck has a maximum GVWR of 16 tonnes, the final configuration would be lower, and you could operate it without a CDL. The poster is correct about licensing requirements. I do not have a CDL, but I can drive the straight trucks and package cars because they are under the 26,000lbs GVWR limit in my state.

Note that within the EU, in general "large goods vehicle" licenses cover everything over 3.5 tonnes, so these Volvo trucks are _well_ into that category. Package delivery companies avoid such large vehicles for last-mile deliveries.

But yes, two-axle trucks like what Volvo is proposing do of course see heavy usage for deliveries in commercial/industrial settings. Most smaller supermarkets are supplied by such trucks, for example, especially within cities (where loading bays are rare).

Deliveries as a segment is not exclusively UPS/DHL/etc. package delivery to end consumers. At least where I live there's plenty of small trucks doing deliveries from regional warehouses to various shops.

> If that’s the case, they’ll make a single 300 km trip or day. I doubt that the business case for that is strong.

Europe is much denser when comapared to US. You can do a lot within 300KM in Europe. Volvo openly states that the trucks are "to be used for regional transport and urban construction operations in Europe".

The trucks in question and the possible range is very well suited to this kind of operation.

Also, there's another important factor: Noise. Some European countries are more sensitive to noise than others. The Netherlands and Sweden comes to my mind.

These trucks will be a huge win on that front because a 44 tonne truck is not exactly silent, especially under load.

I live in Norway and I can tell you, 300 km will not suffice. The thing is, when you have other trucks on the market with more range (e.g. Tesla-Semi), and likely, much better charging infrastructure, why would you go with Volvo?

Volvo has a way to go if they want to compete in this market.

Noise wont have any effect as it is not government regulated. A buyer of Semis wont think twice about noice if $ / km is lower.

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